Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 15:09:24 +1000 (EST)
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: final straws was Re: M-I: Re: Replying to Rahul


At 07:09 AM 3/29/97 -0800, Rahul wrote:
>I write a post clearly stating that it is not Stalinism that is the problem
(and
>not the Stalinists, with whom we can cooperate as long as they are on the
>ground fighting), but vile behaviour such as Olaechea's (calling for the
>killing of political opponents) which should be condemned no matter who in the
>"left" originates it. And Gary Maclennan and Louis Proyect come back with a
>long post educating me on the necessity of working with Stalinists, and
>concentrating on current issues! 
>

Mahajan,

Like most stuff on this list this is starting to give me the shits.  You're
coming in on the end of a dispute and yet assume you know it all.  I do not
defend Adolfo's current attacks on Zeynep.  They are truly shocking and if
the moderators were up to the mark they would stop posting them.  I wrote
originally in response to Zaremka's baiting of Mark Jones.  My intervention
then was to designed to prevent what has since happened.  I wrote because I
cared about the list.  

My thanks has been to have idiots like you accuse me of being a goon and
then saying no I was not a goon only a craven ass kisser.  Well friend that
is an insult in my language.  Like in the case of that other little cowardly
shit Levy I will give you I hope some day the opportunity to repeat it to my
face. But again like him you would be very ill advised to do so.  For what
it is worth yes I will try and rip your fucking head off.

And by the way the moderators can spare themselves the trouble of writing to
me.  I am leaving this list.  Should sanity ever return to it I might.

G.MacLennan








>Also, Lou Proyect accuses me of not spending enough time posting to the list
>*and* of being obsessed with the computer. At the same time. I guess this is
>one of those marxist contradictions. My apologies if I had other things to do
>than posting to this list, but I'm hard-pressed to understand how that amounts
>to being obsessed with the computer and netiquette. 
>
>Apparently I didn't write my first sentence very clearly. I did not intend to
>accuse Henwood, Maclennan, Proyect, and Cox of being goons nor of constituting
>a gang -- those who are actually Olaechea's goons are not worth discussing. I
>accused them merely of cravenly sucking up to Olaechea, a charge which I am
>amazed they can deny with a straight face.
>
>I give Henwood and Cox some credit for admitting that this thug is a thug,
>although they seem to think that writing admiring things in public about a thug
>is perfectly all right. Although none of these four is a goon, what they have
>been doing is also unforgivable. They have the intelligence and the ethical
>sense to know what Olaechea is, but for unprincipled reasons which I still
>cannot fathom, they have ignored this until, now, the best they can do is to
>sit in uncomfortable silence. 
>
>That's the issue. No, you're not goons, just damnable hypocrites. Without the
>likes of Proyect and Maclennan around, the internecine violence on the left
>could never have gone on so long. It's not like there are lots of evil people
>who diabolically mastermind such things -- it needs a large number of people
>who just go along to get along.
>
>And, Gary, if you're so impressed by anger, why don't you show that admirable
>quality against people who call for killing political opponents? As far as I'm
>concerned, your pitiful apologetics are no better than your calling for the
>breaking of Zeynep's bones yourself.
>
>Rahul
>
>P.S. For purposes of clarity, I'm reposting what I wrote about Stalinism, which
>Proyect and Maclennan managed to "misunderstand" with such facility.
>
>>The point that I have raised, of course, as Proyect well knows, is >not Stalin
>admiration. In the third world, it is a very >understandable and excusable
>phenomenon, often not really affecting >the realities of struggle against
>capitalist oppression. In the first >world, it is more of a fitting subject for
>abnormal psychology and >remedial education than for serious political
>contention. There is a >big difference, though, between thinking Stalin was a
>good guy or the >Soviet Union was a great place because you think the camps and
>all >the rest are just imperialist propaganda, because you want so >desperately
>to believe there can be something better than the sordid >muck you see around
>>you, or even thinking that the monstrous tragedy that was the Soviet >Union
>was inevitable, that the rulers did the best they could with >what they had, on
>the one hand, and, on the other hand, being >buddy-buddy with someone who has
>just called for the torture and >murder of a person because she applied the
>rules of a mailing list to >him. His attempt to shift the issue and evade his
>palpable and >evident culpability in this regard just exposes the fact of his
>>unprincipled opportunism more clearly. It has nothing to do with a >political
>orientation. He's not kidding anybody.
>
>>There are people here in Turkey who think the Soviet Union was a >wonderful
>place and defend things like the crushing of Hungary and >Czechoslovakia
>because of the need to "defend the workers' state" who >are, even so, the
>finest people I hope to know. They would be as >disgusted by Olaechea's
>thuggishness and Proyect's hypocritical >apologetics as I am. (Substitute
>"Proyect and Maclennan" for >"Proyect".)
>
>
>
>
>
>
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